Fans are pulled to safety during the 1989 Hillsborough disaster.
Photograph: Colorsport/REX/Shutterstock

Criminal charges could be brought for the first time against individuals and organisations involved in the 1989 Hillsborough disaster after the investigators passed files on 23 suspects to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).

Fifteen of the 23 investigated have been subject to inquiries relating to the disaster itself on 15 April 1989, in which 96 people were killed and hundreds more were injured in a lethal crush at the FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest at Sheffield Wednesday’s Hillsborough football ground.

Operation Resolve, the police investigation into the cause of the deaths, said the cases it had sent to the CPS included possible charges of gross negligence manslaughter, perverting the course of justice, misconduct in public office and offences for breaches of the Safety of Sports Ground Act 1975 and health and safety laws.

Operation Resolve said the 15 suspects included individuals and organisations, but did not identify them.

Files on the other eight suspects have been referred by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), which has been investigating South Yorkshire police officers since 2012 for allegedly covering up the force’s own culpability for the disaster and mounting a false case that Liverpool supporters were to blame.

The potential offences for which the IPCC has submitted files to the CPS, relating to these eight suspects, include perverting the course of justice, conspiracy to pervert the course of justice and misconduct in public office.

A further 170 allegations of police misconduct, made by family members of the 96 people who died and by Liverpool supporters who were at Hillsborough, were still under investigation, the IPCC said. Of these, 38 are being investigated by Operation Resolve because they relate to the behaviour of police officers on the day of the disaster.

In April, the jury at the new inquests into the disaster determined that the 96 people were unlawfully killed and found a series of failings by South Yorkshire police, the South Yorkshire Metropolitan ambulance service, Sheffield Wednesday, the club’s engineers Eastwood & Partners and Sheffield city council, which was responsible for licensing Hillsborough for safety. The jury completely exonerated Liverpool supporters and found their conduct did not contribute to the dangerous situation at the ground.

Trevor Hicks, the president of the Hillsborough Family Support Group, whose two teenage daughters, Sarah and Vicki, were killed at the match, said he believed diligent investigative work had been done, but that he and some families were disappointed at the number of cases.

“My view is that it is better to go forward with 23 cases which are solid than more which might be lost, particularly as some of these potential charges are very serious,” he said. “But I am surprised the number is as small as that given the number of people involved on the day and in the years since.”

Bereaved families and survivors have fought a 28-year campaign for justice after South Yorkshire police blamed supporters for the disaster and since the first inquest reached a verdict of accidental death in March 1991. No individual or organisation was prosecuted for any offence, nor were any police officers subjected to disciplinary proceedings.

The IPCC’s deputy chair, Rachel Cerfontyne, said she recognised the disappointment of families who had felt “utterly let down by judicial processes” for so many years. She said the number of cases was determined by the criteria that for a suspect to have had criminal intent, in a hierarchical organisation like the police, they would have to be a “controlling mind,” which meant they would be “senior enough to be decision makers”.

The IPCC said it had found that a total of 289 statements made by South Yorkshire police officers after the disaster had been subsequently amended and that this, including whether pressure was put on officers to amend their accounts, had been a central part of its investigation. The decision at the football ground to take blood samples from the bodies of those who died, to be tested for alcohol, was another focus of the investigation.

The IPCC said it had investigated police briefings given to the media and politicians after the disaster, including lurid allegations about supporters, which were published in the Sun four days later.

The West Midlands police, which was brought in to investigate immediately after the disaster, has now been investigated itself by the IPCC, for alleged malpractice and collusion with South Yorkshire police.

Further investigations were carried out into the alleged influence of freemasons in South Yorkshire police and into whether Sir Norman Bettison, a South Yorkshire police officer at the time of the disaster, was dishonest about his involvement in Hillsborough when he subsequently applied for the role of chief constable at Merseyside police in 1998. Bettison has always denied any wrongdoing and said it was not relevant to state his Hillsborough experience on the application form.

Robert Beckley, the officer in overall command of Operation Resolve, which also provided evidence for the new inquests, said: “Our task has been to investigate whether any individual or organisation is criminally culpable for their role either in the planning and preparation for the match or on the day of the game itself. The extensive file we have submitted, which contains over 35m words, reflects four years of intense work from my team.”

Cerfontyne said the Hillsborough investigations had been the largest ever into alleged police wrongdoing in Britain.

“Conducting an inquiry of this scale and complexity, while supporting the longest running inquests in British legal history, has been a significant undertaking for the IPCC,” she said. “Our criminal investigation has now substantially concluded.”

The CPS is expected to take between three and six months to assess the files and decide whether there is sufficient evidence to bring charges.